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A Day in the Life of...

GPS Stands for Great Personal Story

June 2008
by Deborah Lipsky

Things always happen when I travel that don't seem to happen to anyone else. This last time out my co-coordinator didn't bring along a GPS navigator assuming she didn't need it.  I tried to tell her it is unwise to travel without "Jill" that is what their office Garmin GPS calls herself.  I was to find out on this trip that GPS also stands for great personal story.

The flight was rather uneventful except for the fact that when I wear my sign around my neck that says "I have autism" my I.Q. drops 50 points with the airline personnel.  I have been called "Sweetie",  "Honey",  "Sugar" and  "Dearie" so many times frankly I am disappointed no one has referred to me as "Cupcake" yet.  During the flight the stewardess came by with her beverage cart, looked at my autism sign, and asked in a rather motherly way, "Sweetie can I get you something to drink?"

I replied "coffee please with extra cream and sugar". Normally they hand you the coffee and have you add the sugar and cream but not this time.  I was holding out my hand for the cup but she proceeded to pour in the cream and sugar and then stir it for me carefully and asked, "Is this how you like it Sweetie?”   I just said  "Yes, thank you" and took the cup after acknowledging her admonition to be careful as the coffee was hot.   For a split second I thought to myself the only thing she didn't do for me was to drink the coffee  but then I came to this realization...........don't knock it as I was getting first class service in the economy class.

I met my co-coordinator Penny at the airport and we drove to Cleveland. I have a routine to get postcards at the airport and then fill them out that night. I asked Penny if the hotel had them otherwise I would get them at the airport and she said they usually do. When we arrived in Cleveland the hotel we stayed at "usually didn't" carry postcards.  We tried the local mall to no avail and when we came upon a Hilton hotel Penny said that they "absolutely, positively, bet your life on it " will have postcards and they "absolutely, positively" didn't.  She promised that when we drove to Columbus she would make sure we would get my postcards.  We checked in and I always ask for a room closest to the ground floor because statistically speaking in case you have to jump out of the window [like for fire] you can't survive a 4 or higher floor jump. Second floor you will break allot of bones but still survive and ground floor you can just run out or if you have to "jump" it isn't far of a fall. I got a first floor room and I looked at the clerk and Penny and said "I am a V.I.P. and important because I got a room on the first floor."  Penny began to chuckle and said that the Penthouse Suite on the very top floor is what the V.I.P.'s get to let people know they are important. He who laughs last laughs best because I retorted that her V.I.P. stands for "very ignorant person" because they wouldn't survive a fire if they had to jump from that height.  Doesn't anyone remember the movie "Towering Inferno" starring Charlton Heston???

After I gave my seminar we drove to Columbus.  At the hotel we stayed at they had no postcards so Penny said we would check in and then she promised she would find a place to get them.  The hotel clerk gave us directions for the mall in Easton where they would have them. The plan was for each of us to go to our room, unpack, and then Penny would knock on my door and we would go to the mall.   I got my room assignment, number 105. This hotel had the credit card like keys to unlock the room. I  trotted to my room cheerfully and fully loaded with my  gear,  swiped my key card in the lock, got the green 'go ahead on in'  light, and then crashed thru the door sort of like a bull in a china shop.  What was to happen next I could have never imagined in my wildest nightmares.  As I crashed thru the door with my bags banging against furniture this is what I beheld............two people, one of them a woman with her hair   wrapped up turban style with a bath towel with a man on my bed and since this is a family newsletter suffice it to say they were engaging in "adult stimming activities" of the most intimate kind.  Instinctively I yelled out at the top of my lungs,  "OH MY GOD" and backed out quickly while the occupants rushed to cover themselves with the sheets. I guess they just wanted to add a little excitement to their day and inevitably added a ton to mine...........WOW!!!  I don't know what startled them more, my entrance as graceful as a SWAT team raid or my megaphone voice which could be heard three states away.  Talk about being scarred for life!  Now I know how the colloquial expression   "doing the nasty” came to be. This couple was in their 50's or 60's........they belong to the Bingo crowd and not the bedroom gymnastics’ club and it was still daylight out to boot.  Besides wanting to vomit in my mouth I had this urge to rip my eyes out of my head, set them on fire, and then stomp on them......ugh!!!  I was so wound up that everyone I passed in the hall on my way to the front desk got a detailed report of what I just witnessed.  The hotel clerk apologized and said never in her entire career had anything like this happened before and she gave me a new room assignment.  I went to my new room totally forgetting that Penny didn't know what just occurred. Apparently she went to room 105 and knocked playfully on the door but when a deep man's voice said "I will be right there" she ran and didn't hang around long enough for him to answer. In a panic she went to the hotel clerk and said "OK what did you do with her?"

It is the first time in the history of my company [Health Ed] that a speaker encountered such an ordeal and I am quickly gaining a reputation with them  of having weird things happen while on tour that no one else experiences.

We laughed about it as we drove to the mall. We had come up interstate 270 from Cleveland and were driving on it heading back towards Cleveland to come to Easton. I noticed the airport exit was just after our exit and told Penny we will use this as a marker of how to get back to the hotel. I had asked her why she didn't bring the office Garmin GPS navigator to Ohio and Penny said she didn't think she needed it as she had Map-Quest.  Getting off the off ramp there was the mall.  It had a sports store that carried my beloved postcards and I was finally happy my ritual would be back on track.  Getting back on 270 was easy as it was so close to the mall. We were looking for I- 270\W but all we saw was I-270N and I-270S.

We took 270 north and after a few miles saw signs that said this was the route for Cleveland followed by the airport exit sign I remembered as a marker. We turned around at the next exit and headed on 270S and after a few miles saw signs for Cleveland and we saw the same airport exit.  We turned around and again went 270N as if things would be different a second time around but they weren't.  We headed out once more on 270S going literally in circles like demented tourists. No matter which way we went we were always heading towards Cleveland and the same mall exit.   I swore that any moment I would hear out of the back seat Rod Serling say, "Welcome to the twilight zone".  A ten minute drive to get $2.00 worth of postcards turned into a two hour ordeal.  If we had the GPS navigator instead of the inaccurate Map-Quest directions I guess I wouldn't have a story.  We got off at the first available exit and stopped by a gas station/quick mart located conveniently next to a stripper lounge on a dark section of roadway at 11pm.  I went in and got something to drink and quickly waited outside for Penny. I figured in the event that the place gets robbed and hostages taken I want to be on the outside where it was safer.

We got directions and found out in Ohio their interstate 270 has both east and west and north and south lanes but not on the same road. All we had to do was drive a few streets and go about 20 miles and look for Olentangy Road which was the road the hotel was on.  Following the directions at the next intersection we would come up to Olentangy Road.  We approached the intersection carefully so we wouldn't miss which road was ours and there we saw the road signs for the four roads that intersected there and they were ALL Olentangy Road.  We just looked at each other, looked outside to see where the candid camera crew was and just sat there a minute. When it obvious this wasn't a joke we once again went up and down three of the four Olentangy roads to only have the last one be the correct one.  When we finally got to the hotel Penny said I better enjoy my postcards after that ordeal and I retorted that if we had a GPS navigator I would have enjoyed my postcards two hours earlier.

So you ask what is the moral of this story???   The answer is there is none........I still haven't made sense of it other than remember to double lock your hotel rooms when you are inside or at least hang out a do not disturb sign if you wish to engage in adult stimming activities otherwise you never know who will come barging through your door. Also never leave home without your GPS system.

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